Norway to start emissions quota trading in 2005
Date: 25-Mar-02
Country: NORWAY
"The main reason for introducing a quota-based emissions trading system at this early date is to stimulate further cost-effective action in Norway," Environment Minister Boerge Brende said in a statement.
The proposal will allow companies currently exempt from a carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions tax to buy the right to emit CO2, a by-product of burning fossil fuels.
Norway demands a CO2 emissions tax of 300 Norwegian crowns ($34.34) a tonne, while analysts say the quotas will only cost between 75-150 Norwegian crowns per tonne of CO2.
The CO2 tax would be continued until 2008 to avoid creating more pollution by companies taking advantage of cheap quotas, the ministry said.
By 2008, the system will be expanded to all sectors as part of the U.N.-sponsored 1997 Kyoto protocol which calls for reductions in global emissions of greenhouse gases by an average 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by 2008-12.
"It will ensure that we really achieve cuts in emissions and give industries and the authorities useful experience of emissions trading," Brende said.
The ministry also proposed that Norway should ratify the 1997 Kyoto protocol.
